A Fine Balance

A Fine Balance

For use in schools and libraries only. In mid-1970s India, after a "state of internal emergency" is declared, four diverse people--a widowed seamstress, a student, and a man and his nephew who have fled their village--find their lives inextricably intertwined.

Promotion info

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry is a subtle and compelling narrative about four unlikely characters brought together in just the kind of unforeseeable circumstances that mid-1970s India was capable of producing.

Reviews

"'One of India's finest living novelists.' Observer"

Author description

Rohinton Mistry is the author of three novels, all of which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and a collection of short stories, Tales from Firozsha Baag. His first novel, Such a Long Journey, won the Governor General's Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, and the SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award. It was made into an acclaimed feature film in 1998. A Fine Balance was winner of the Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize, the Royal Society of Literature's Winifred Holtby Award, and Denmark's ALOA Prize. It was a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and the Prix Femina. In 2002, A Fine Balance was selected for Oprah's Book Club. Family Matters wasa finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. It won the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for Fiction and the Canadian Authors Association Fiction Award. Born in Bombay, Rohinton Mistry came to Canada in 1975 after completing a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Economics at Bombay University. He has accepted honorary degrees from the University of Ottawa (Doctor of the University, 1996), the University of Toronto (Doctor of Letters, 1999), York University (Doctor of Letters, 2003), and Ryerson University (Doctor of Letters, 2012). He was awarded the Trudeau Fellows Prize in 2004, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005. Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009, he was a finalist for the 2011 Man Booker International Prize, and winner of the 2012 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In translation, his work has been published in more than thirty languages.